Saturday, October 11, 2014

As Woody Allen is credited with observing: “80% of success is just showing up” and that was pretty much the message Lady M had for her loyal subjects along the campaign trail yesterday.

There was a little trouble getting them to show up for her big Democratic rally in Detroit though. First of all it was held in a venue of very modest size, the Music Hall (currently under construction) rather than our previous arena-sized event at nearby Ford Field.

Worse yet, as of the day before the rally the The Michigan Democratic Party had toopen the event to the public in order to fill up this modest hall. It’s almost as if the Democrats aren’t all that excited about their candidates, or Lady M.

Anyway, everything went well in Detroit – aside from that motorcycle accident on I-94 involving Lady M’s motorcade. (Don’t worry, the officer was okay.) Things didn’t go as smoothly in Iowa, due to Lady M being jet lagged or something. She kept mis-mispronouncing her homie’s name: Braley, Bailey; no biggie. It’s not like it’s a write-in where spelling matters.

Besides, it wasn’t the candidates names that were important, it was her message for the American people:

DETROIT, MI - First Lady Michelle Obama told a Detroit audience Friday "we are better off today than when Barack first took office," as she rallied the crowd in support of Michigan Democrats up for election in November.

Believe me, I think everyone knows that Barack and Michelle are “better off today than when Barack first took office,” it’s the rest of us that people seem to be concerned about. I mean, when you’regetting mocked by Jimmy Carter, something’s just not right.

Stop looking at me Barack!

So let’s evaluate this “are you better off” issue objectively: now that Ebola has hit our shores (due to porous borders) you’ve lost the doctor that you liked butt couldn’t keep because the insurance plan that you liked butt couldn’t keep were both replaced by Obamacare - that you can’t afford even though it has a $5000 deductible, $4000 co-insurance and $4000 co-pay – because you’re one of the 1 in 4 Americans of prime working age who are not employed. Oh, and ISIS is about to retake Baghdad. Shall I mark you down as “undecided” then?

Friday, October 10, 2014

“Some men aren’t looking for anything logical like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.” – Alfred, in "The Dark Knight”

For some reason this concept always tends to catch some people by surprise. Take the New York Times for example, their headline today reads:

WASHINGTON — Darkness is enveloping American politics.

Hard to dispute, as it turns out, butt isn’t that, uh…racist?

With four weeks to go before the midterm elections, Republicans have made questions of how safe we are — from disease, terrorism or something unspoken and perhaps more ominous — central in their attacks against Democrats. Their message is decidedly grim: President Obama and the Democratic Party run a government that is so fundamentally broken it cannot offer its people the most basic protection from harm.

If we could, we would ask Ambassador Christopher Stevens (RIP), Information Officer Sean Smith (RIP) and former Navy Seals Tyrone Woods (RIP) and Glen Doherty (RIP) how well Obama and his Democratic Party protect American citizens: “Where’s my f***ing Spectre?”

While they mention a few of the most recent reasons fueling this sentiment – Ebola, ISIS, the Secret Service failure – they dismiss it as a Republican plot:

“I think Republicans want people to turn on the television and see that nothing is working,” said Robert Gibbs, Mr. Obama’s former spokesman.

If only that were the case the world would sleep better tonight. Alas, nothing is working and it goes much further back then our current woes. All the way from Pigford and Gun Walking to Obamacare’s failure to launch; we’ve hada dozen phony scandalsthat we refuse to talk about butt nevertheless keep picking away at people’s confidence in the government’s ability to do anything without political purpose. So is it any surprise then, that as the NYT notes:

A sense that the country is dangerously off track is an increasingly popular topic of conversation in conservative media.

Although there seem to be substantial reasons for this sense of doom, still they mock it:

Erick Erickson, the conservative writer and radio host, wrote: “At least this administration is consistent. It will let everyone and everything, including pestilence, cross our border.”

“I bet, if we are patient,” he added, “the administration will even place Ebola with a nice family somewhere in Middle America and give it government benefits.”

As if that makes it somehow less true .

Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Burwell said that despite the best efforts of health officials, Americans have to prepare for the reality that there may be more cases of Ebola in the United States. –Washington Examiner

Such incompetence (at least I HOPE it’s incompetence) doesn’t matter, of course, in the age of Obama; we are judged on our intentions not our outcomes.

Combined with the very best of intentions

Nevertheless, Dems across the land are lacing up their jogging shoes and running in the opposite direction. The New York Times didn’t know which way to run with it, so they just left the whole mess laying in a pile like yesterday’s story. Here’s their wrap:

“The recurring pattern here is his unwillingness to admit things are bad,” said Stuart Stevens, a Republican strategist who was Mitt Romney’s top adviser in 2012. “It’s sort of like saying the world isn’t what it is, which is not an uncommon thing in the White House.”

Instead of refuting the darkness, they choose to curse the light:

Oh yes, we are in the very best of hands.

Well, I’ve got to run, big day in Detroit today: Lady M is pitch hitting for Big Guy. Should be a great rally. We’re really “fired up.”

"Now, when it comes to the fashion industry, so often people think it’s all about catwalks and red carpets and 'who wore it best,' and whether some famous person wore the right belt with the right shoes –- like I’d know what that’s like," she said to laughter from the audience.

"But the truth is that the clothes you see in the magazine covers are really just the finished product in what is a very long very complicated and very difficult process, as I’ve come to learn working with many designers."

so a lot of jobs, a lot of income that is generated by many of the people who are sitting in this room.

Anna, spreading the wealth around by shopping at Starbucks

But for so many of you –- whether you’re already in the industry or aspiring to be there some day -– I know that in the end, fashion is really about passion and creativity.

Can we tone done the passion just a tad? And maybe rein in the creativity a bit?

Just like music or dance or poetry, it’s what drives you. It’s what gets you out of bed each morning. It’s what you write about in essays in school and what you read about in the news.[ed. because you sure won’t read anything about all those phony scandals] It occupies every ounce of your daily lives.

I know this because with creative people, that’s what their passion does -- it makes everything else worthwhile.

Creative Passion: it makes everything else worthwhile.

Or something.

Fashion is about so much more than just a pretty pair of pumps

MO’s $635 half “pumps” - not just pretty

or the perfect hemline.

perfect hemline…all of them

For so many people across the country, it is a calling, it is a career, and it’s a way they feed their families.

Remember when ordinary people used to be able to do that too?

Have a career and feed their family I mean?

So that’s why we thought it was important to bring the industry to the White House, and to share it with all of you who are coming up in the next generation.

Later, (Lady M) told the story of Spanx, and talked up the product to the crowd. "Just take Sara Blakely, for example…14 years later, Sara’s idea, Spanx, is a multibillion-dollar company with products selling in more than 50 countries. (Applause.) And we all wear them with pride. (Laughter.)"

Whether we should or not.

One size fits all

So what do you say, how about a thank you and a big round of applause to our wonderful FLOTUS for bringing a little fashion into our otherwise sad little fly over lives!!

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Did you catch this morning’s total lunar eclipse? It was pretty awesome.

Referred to as a “blood moon” it occurs when the the moon is in full phase and its orbit meets the orbit of the earth around the sun. When directly aligned the moon is completely enveloped by earth’s shadow, with jusst a thin band of infrared light shining through and bouncing off the moon’s surface, thus creating the illusion of a “blood red” moon.

“You might expect Earth seen in this way to be utterly dark, but it’s not. The rim of the planet is on fire! As you scan your eye around Earth’s circumference, you’re seeing every sunrise and every sunset in the world, all of them, all at once. This incredible light beams into the heart of Earth’s shadow, filling it with a coppery glow and transforming the Moon into a great red orb.”

It can be rather creepy…

causing some people to consider the occasion of a blood moon as a celestial omen of approaching sea change. Others have read much more into it.

…it comes from hunters who tracked and killed their prey by autumn moonlight, stockpiling food for the winter ahead.

“You can picture them: silent figures padding through the forest, the moon overhead, pale as a corpse, its cold light betraying the creatures of the wood,”

Based on that we would normally denounce its name and replace it with something more culturally acceptable such as “Rose Red Moon” - except for the fact that the Farmers Almanac credits the designation to Native American hunters. Talk about the horns of a dilemma.

Comanche Warrior Buffalo Horn Headdress

I for one would like to go on record as favoring Blood Moons, as it is quite obvious that white, silvery moons are blatantly racist.

And speaking of celestial orbits, it is with dismay and a heavy heart that I report Big Guy’s orbit has been severely foreshortened recently; perhaps signaling the end of the expanding Obama universe. Maybe he should have left NASA’s mission in place,

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

"But make no mistake: these policies are on the ballot. Every single one of them."

Can we suck these eggs any harder?

Today is your 4 week warning, people: the midterms are on November 4th. In order to assist you with your decisions I was going to recap all of Big Guy’s achievements during his first 3 historic quarters of play.

Butt I see that Don Surber has already done that for us: nearly a trillion dollar stimulus that didn’t stimulate, a Cash for Clunkers program that was a clunker, Solyndra Solar which sunset shortly after the loan was gone, Obamacare – need I say more?, Iraq troop withdrawal – losing at winning. Oh yeah, he did whack Osama bin Laden, butt according to Don,he even screwed that up.

His summary of the Obama years:

Every single thing this president has tried or promised has failed. The economy? Fail. Transparency in government? Fail. Easing racial tension? Fail. Ending war? Fail. Winning Afghanistan? Fail.

Hell, he could not even pull off the Beer Summit between Professor Gates and the white cop. It ended with no one conceding anything.

The only two things he got right in nearly 6 years is his 2009 NCAA bracket and killing that fly on TV.

Monday, October 6, 2014

Being Numero Duo for so long has taken its toll in gaffes. And while we’re all used to his off-key notes by now, apparently the rest of the world isn’t as forgiving. They’re still a little off-put by being accused of aiding and abetting terrorists.So over the weekend Turkey’s President Erdogan and Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed both demanded apologies from the Veep.

“Wait, what? What did I say now?”

In fact Joey’s been so distracted by all the problems in the world - like who’s done the most to earn the nod to run as the Democratic nominee for president -

It’s my turn, baby!

that he hasn’t had time to focus on insignificant things like numbers. So he inadvertently began adding and subtracting zeroes at will (161 – 161,000; what difference at this point does it make?).

Let’s start out slowly, with some 2nd grade number bonds; are you ready Joey?

“OK, ready; can I use my toes too?”

Here we go:

Maybe we can stop right here, before we need to drop back to pre-school number bondings. And remember, none of this matters in politics anyway; competence only counts in winning elections and Ebola outbreaks.

Yessir, it’s sure a good thing we didn’t end up with a vice president like Sarah Palin isn’t it? Because what good would plain speaking common sense do when we’re faced with existential threats like war and pestilence? She’d probably try to do something stupid like shutting the borders and banning flights into the country from Ebola hot zones. Silly girl.